The Donald is Back

It's been a long few weeks without any new reality tv. I really don't know how I survived.

Last night's premiere of The Apprentice: LA was surprisingly good. I knew that there would be some twists, but not how many twists there would be. And for the most part, they're good.

To recap, they're in LA this season. Trump is in one mansion, the candidates are in the mansion next door. Well, sort of...the winning team is in the mansion; the losing team is in tent-city in the sprawling backyard (and since it's a mansion's backyard, there are sprinklers. Brilliant.). It's a huge twist not just because of the rift it creates between the teams, and the reward of living in the house, but game-wise, it means the teams don't really interact with each other. At first I didn't like it, but it's more Survivor-ish, and we all know how I feel about Survivor. George and Carolyn are gone...I know that Carolyn is no longer with the Trump organization, but who knows what happened to George. Ivanka is the one "eyes & ears" this season, and she's actually pretty good. The other seat? The winning PM. Wow. That's a HUGE twist...not sure if I like it or not yet. It will be interesting to see how it plays out over the season, especially when a PM who has sat in the board room actually loses. The final twist I know how I feel about - the winning PM stays PM until they lose. This I hate. So many reasons why - for now, just know that I hate it.

Now for the candidates. It's hard to have feelings about most of them yet, but I definitely have my favorites (and my not-so-favorites). I really like Heidi & James. I also like Angela. One of them will be in the finals for sure (see, I'm not so much for predicting the entire final three anymore!). At the other end? Well, let's just say I wasn't sad to see Martin go. If he pulled out one more African proverb, I would have lost it. So worthless; so his time to go. Frank didn't do a great job, but I think he'll be fine - being the first PM when you don't know your team yet...it's hard, and he didn't lose by a huge margin.

The other thing I really like this season is that Trump seems to have a lot more attitude. Even from the first few minutes when he said to his son "take care of yourself." :) He was funny on the reward, and snarky in the boardroom. I love it.

Can't wait for next week...